Method and apparatus for monitoring of switch resources using resource group definitions

Abstract

Resources associated with a communication system switch are monitored by storing information defining one or more resource groups. Each of the resource groups includes multiple identifiers, with each of the identifiers specifying at least one resource to be monitored. A client external to the switch is permitted to select at least one of the resource groups for monitoring. In response to selection of one of the groups by the client, monitoring of the corresponding resources is established on behalf of the client. The resource monitoring may be established, controlled and maintained by a telephony server coupled between the client and the switch. Such a telephony server can preserve monitoring for a resource group, independent of the requests of clients, in order to reduce the amount of execution time needed to set up and tear down monitors for client applications. This is particularly advantageous in call centers or in other client applications that involve monitoring large numbers of switch resources.

Description

FIELD OF THE INVENTION[0001]The invention relates generally to the field of enterprise communication platforms and other types of communication system switches, and more particularly to the monitoring of resources associated with a communication system switch.BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION[0002]Examples of conventional communication system switches include private branch exchanges (PBXs) and automatic call distribution (ACD) systems. As is well known, such switches may be controlled via computer-telephony integration (CTI) applications running on computers internal or external to the corresponding enterprise communication platform. CTI applications are commonly used in call centers and other enterprise call processing contexts.[0003]An important function of CTI applications in these contexts involves the monitoring of switch resources. For example, most CTI applications require information regarding dynamic telephony activity for specific enterprise communication platform resources, su...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0014]Advantageously, the present invention provides particularly efficient techniques for monitoring multiple diverse communications platforms on behalf of numerous, otherwise unrelated clients. The invention can be configured to provide a consistent interface for the clients, and centralized negotiation, control and maintenance of resource monitoring relationships. Moreover, the time required to establish the monitoring on behalf of clients is considerably reduced, particularly for applications monitoring large numbers of resources and upon failure and restart of clients or client applications.

Problems solved by technology

Unfortunately, there are a number of significant problems with the conventional resource monitoring approach described above.

For example, the above-noted example CTI APIs typically require that resource monitoring requests be issued one at a time, resulting in an unduly complex arrangement when there are a large number of resources to monitor.

Moreover, since each CTI application is responsible for generating its own individual resource monitoring requests, redundant lists of monitored resources may be present in different CTI applications, or one or more of the lists may be inconsistent with the actual resources present at any given time in the enterprise communication platform.

Yet another problem is that the individual resource monitoring requests typically have to be regenerated each time a given CTI application is restarted, which can result in excessive execution time.

As a more particular example, a CTI application running on a client machine may crash, in which case existing monitoring arrangements will be terminated and must be reestablished, at the cost of additional execution time.

Existing API function calls fail to provide an adequate solution to one or more of the problems identified above.

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